I am a MA/MBA candidate at the Lauder Institute and the Wharton School of Business. I focus on Russian politics, economics, and demography but also write more generally about Eastern Europe. Please note that all opinions expressed here are mine and mine alone and that I do not speak in an official capacity for Lauder, Wharton, Forbes or any other organization.
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Pussy Riot's Strange New Defender

The Pussy Riot saga took a turn for the bizarre this morning when it was announced that a mufti from Vologda, a “plenipotentiary member of the council of Russian muftis” said that he thinks the band’s members ought to be freed. Nail Mustafin, the mufti in question, went on the record as saying that ”we [all believing Muslims] think that these girls should be let go and should not be prosecuted.”

Mustafin’s statement quickly became a Russian version of the “even the liberal New Republic” argument in which even the Muftis think that Pussy Riot should immediately go free. The story with Mustafin’s statement was tweeted out by Gruppa Voina, the “art collective” to which Pussy Riot’s members belong, and re-tweeted by opposition luminaries such as Alexey Navalny.

Now just in case anyone’s confused about my personal views on the matter, I think the entire prosecution of the band is a travesty and that the very idea of prosecuting someone on the basis of “religious hatred” is an appalling one. With a few very clearly delineated exceptions people ought to be able to say whatever they want, wherever they want, in whatever manner they want, and so Pussy Riot shouldn’t go to prison for having bad manners and all of the Orthodox believers who are claiming to be so hurt ought to just grow up and get thicker skin.

But I’ll confess that I found the spectacle of a Mufti denouncing the Orthodox Church for its patriarchy and oppression just a little bit too contrarian to take at face value. I therefore took the truly radical step of trying to ascertain who, exactly, is Nail Mustafin and what, if anything, he thinks about women’s rights. Pretty crazy stuff, I know. Helpfully, Mustafin’s Twitter account lists a website for the Vologda mosque at which he works.

I’ll spare everyone any long-winded digression and just translate some of what Mustafin’s mosque says about the appropriate role of women in society. You are welcome to decide for yourselves if this is the sort of “defender” that Pussy Riot really needs:

A righteous woman should, first of all, obey Allah’s requirements and, secondly, be obedient to her husband and fulfill all of her duties to him, the most important of which are the following:

1. First of all a Muslim woman should prefer the rights of her husband to her own rights and those of her relatives. The Prophet said that if he ordered someone to worship another, then he would order a wife to worship her spouse because her duty to him is great.

2. A woman should be ready at any time to satisfy her husband’s physical demands, with the exception of days when she is menstruating, has just given birth, or is sick. A woman is not permitted to refuse to perform her duties in bed. Our Prophet said: “If a husband invites his wife to bed and she refuses him, then angels will curse her until morning because her husband is angry at her.”

This obligation of a wife is the most important, because it is the one the predetermines the happiness of spouses. The non-observance of a wife of these obligations and ignoring the rights of a husband for intimacy often serves as a pretext for divorce and discord in a family. For this reason a wife should always strive to be attractive, desirible, responsive, and active…

4. A wife is responsible for her husband’s house, and is therefore forbidden to give anything significant out of the house without his permission, even to her own relatives…

5. A woman does not have the right to leave the house without the permission of her husband. But a husband should not forbid her to go out for her own needs or to visit relatives if there is no danger of her falling into the forbidden or if he has no doubt about this.

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Mark, you say that you “took the truly radical step of trying to ascertain who, exactly, is Nail Mustafin and what, if anything, he thinks about women’s rights.” I think that might overstate the amount of thought and work you’ve put into this post.

You haven’t really discovered anything about Mustafin’s beliefs, you’ve found some text on his mosque’s website. Presumably you wouldn’t want yourself associated with all the views found on Forbes.com, so why would you make the assumption that Mustafin agrees with everything on the Vologda mosque site? This seems like even more of a stretch given that the text you translate seems to be a standard passage found on various Russian-language Islamic sites (e.g. http://www.islamdag.ru/book/1294, http://open.az/engine/print.php?newsid=42093&news_page=1).

Read Mustafin’s Twitter a bit more – he seems like an interesting guy, and perhaps more open-minded than the views you tar him with would suggest. He takes this position on Pussy Riot: “Мне не нравится, но и то что с ними делают мне тоже не нравится.” Seems fair to me.

Since he is an employee of that mosque and since the only reason his opinion on the story was considered Relevant was precisely because of his employment at that mosque, it seems perfectly logical to assume that he agrees with the mosque’s basic worldview. These are not obscure theological debates, theyre very basic questions about gender relations. Do you have any evidence that he opposes the views of his own mosque? Or perhaps an explanation for why a supposed progressive would associate with such a stridently reactionary outfit?

I don’t have any evidence that he opposes the views posted on the mosque’s site, any more than you have any evidence that he supports those views. Unlike you, however, I’m not CLAIMING to know what he thinks. If you want to say something worthwhile about this, why not try to figure out what he thinks? Try asking him on Twitter – he seems pretty responsive!

My point is that “these ideas are posted on the website of the organization he works for, therefore this is what he thinks about women’s rights” does not constitute an honest argument or useful research. As long as you can’t be bothered to actually find Mustafin’s views, the only thing your post adds to this subject is the groundbreaking discovery that a Russian mosque has some misogynist text on its website.

You seem bizarrely willing to excuse the appalling sexism and misogyny of the Mosque at which Mustafin is employed. I consider myself a pretty open-minded individual but I have no tolerance whatsoever for people (i.e. the people who run Mustafin’s mosque) who view women as divinely commanded to service any and all sexual desires of their husband. That, to me, is a morally bankrupt and disgusting view which should be denounced in the most strident possible terms.

Let’s just imagine a different situation. Imagine Mustafin, instead of working at a mosque which prominently displays “divine commandments” about the inferiority of women, worked at the Westboro Baptist Church, a church whose website prominently displays banners blaring the message “GOD HATES FAGS” and which contains lengthy digressions about the inferiority and sinfulness of same-sex relations.

Knowing that, would you think it’s more reasonable to assume a) that he, in fact, has a negative view of homosexuals or b) that he is extremely positively disposed towards them?

Mark – what kdvs is saying is just that you are taking a short cut in writing this piece.

I think you are right in standing by your statement if this is an opinion piece or an editorial. That does not have to be about substantiated facts or evidence. But if this is a news report, I would have to side with kdvs and agree that you should maybe tweet this dude.

As far as the actual content of the matter goes, I think your assertion is misplaced. It is possible for people to stay in a society or a church or a country without agreeing with everything they profess. If not the society would be static.

Mark, if you’re accusing me of wanting to “excuse” the misogynist views in question, I should probably give up on having a reasonable or honest discussion with you. But if you really want me to spell it out, then yes, these views are obviously abhorrent and inexcusable. That is precisely why I’m objecting to your ascribing them to Mustafin with such weak evidence.

Your hypothetical misses the point. Of course it’s “more reasonable to assume” that Mustafin agrees with the views in question than to assume he holds strong opposing views. But you didn’t write “this is what I assume Mustafin believes based on some standardized text found on his mosque’s website.” Instead, you wrote that you tried “to ascertain who, exactly, is Nail Mustafin and what, if anything, he thinks about women’s rights.”

My point is that you clearly didn’t try very hard. You didn’t take the time to find any of Mustafin’s own statements or writing, let alone contact him. Instead, you settled for translating some provocatively offensive text from a mosque website and declaring that since Mustafin works there, that text represents his views on the subject. It bothers me that you seem to treat Russian Muslims as a homogeneous mass, and not allow for the possibility that they might hold a diversity of views. I know that you can get away with this, since both Mustafin and your blog are obscure enough that no one’s going to call you out for this. But it’s still lazy and dishonest.

I do not at all think “Russian Muslims” are a homogeneous mass, and I neither said nor insinuated that. How did you possibly interpret my remarks about Mustafin as an attack on all Russian Muslims? I am well aware that, like any large group of people, Russian Muslims hold wildly differing views on any number of topics.

Rather, what I claimed (what is, in fact, a pretty obvious fact) is that the mosque from which Pussy Riot’s latest defender hails holds a number of revolting, reactionary, and medieval views on gender. These are not views that are shared by all Russian Muslims and, from what I know of Islam in Russia, are in fact shared only by a tiny minority.

I think it’s extremely noteworthy that Mustafin, someone who was bandied about for his “tolerance” and “moderation,” is actually affiliated with one of the very small number of Russian mosques that hold Wahhabi-like views of gender relations. You are, apparently, convinced that this doesn’t matter. And that’s fine, I guess, but I certainly think it’s worth considering

Seems Mustafin was talking in the name of “all believing Muslims” not in his own name, so looking up his personal view is parhaps beside the point? Whie certainly not representing all Russian muslims, of which many are not very religious, isn’t it reasonable to assume that he speaks in the name of the community around the Mosque he works in (whose belives and views would be promoted on mosque’s website, otherwise why would they be tolerated there?).